Q & A: King returns to Congress amid uncertain times

(Photo submitted) U.S. Rep. Steve King takes the oath of office four his fourth term serving western Iowa. He is sworn in by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

King also talked about the atmosphere at the Capitol and the confirmation process for former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack during a phone interview Friday from Washington, D.C. Some minor, inconsequential editing took place as the phone conversation was converted to text in this article:

Q: The talk in Washington is, the government is going to need to step in as a way to blunt this recession. Whatever they do, it sounds like they want it to be massive and prompt. What are you hearing now?

A: I heard parts at least and read through most of President-elect Obama's speech. I just hear what I have heard continually: They have broken faith with the free enterprise system. They have embraced the idea that … a federal-managed economy, seems to be the direction they're heading. The lessons of the New Deal from the 30s were learned differently by the incoming administration than they were by me and other free-market, free-enterprise leaders here in Congress.

Q: It's a huge question, but what would you do in the situation if you had an opportunity to call the shots?

A: I would suspend capital gains taxes. I'd do that immediately and that would free up more capital to go into this economy than anything the government could possibly do. That would repatriate trillions of dollars in U.S. capital that's stranded overseas because of the tax liability that exists.

And I would have started by now, and it's not too late to start, a 9-11 type of commission -- an independent commission analysis -- of all the things that went on in our finances and in high finance. I would shine sunlight on every step of the way so that the public could learn, incrementally, as this unfolded, the foundational causes for the financial crisis we're in.

I want the public to know, and there's much more that I want to know, about who traded what, when -- where are the weaknesses in our regulations, the credit default … we need sunlight on all of them and we need to take a new look at how we're going to provide the collateral behind the guarantees of the mortgage-backed securities.

(King then shifted to stimulation for the free-market economy.)

I think the lowering of the interest rates makes a significant difference, but I'd want make the tax cuts permanent, not a temporary tax cut. It (a temporary cut) is going to say to the investors: "You can't be confident that you'll be able to get a return on this investment." So I'd make tax cuts permanent. I would not grow the size of government -- not 600,000 new government employees as proposed by Obama. I would assure the public and the investors that our investment is in the private sector -- the productive sector of the economy.

Q: Your status as a member of the minority party is even more pronounced now and you're also working with a Democrat as president. What kinds of things can Steve King from western Iowa do to actually shift the debate and maybe get more favorable legislation through?

A: It's more subtle than it is overt in that, sometimes, good initiatives need to be started by others. I have utilized that for some time here. I utilized it when I was in the Iowa Senate in the majority and I utilized it in the majority and the minority in here in Congress. You find the best person to bring an initiative and you try to get them to do that. Sometimes, I have been the best person to do that and sometimes it's somebody else. So we work with that, work across the aisle in bipartisan efforts.

… The Ag Committee is not really a partisan committee, it's more regional than it is partisan, so that's very easy to work directly with the chairs and subcommittee chairs in the Ag Committee. There's not a partisan problem there at all. The Judiciary Committee is entirely different. That a very partisan committee and a very polarizing committee -- and I'm speaking of the committees that I sit on. So I have to act entirely differently on the Judiciary Committee than I do on the Ag Committee. There is a lot of subtleties involved in this, and I'm glad that I've got some years experience under my belt to deal with this. But the biggest question that's before this Congress and before America is the free-market, free-enterprise system. I just think this stimulus plan that is being put together by the incoming administration is being put together by people who don't believe in the free market.

To make a point here, you'd be interested in this had we been doing this in person, but I have in my hand a stack of flash cards that are produced by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services -- USCIS -- and they are designed to educate people so that they can pass the citizenship test and become naturalized as citizens. It asks questions like: Who is the founder of our country. Well, George Washington. When did we declare independence? July 4, 1776.

This is question No. 11: What is the economic system in the United States? Turn the flash card over, answer is: The capitalist economy, the market economy … I'm not sure that if Barack Obama were taking the naturalization test, and this (question) shows up on it, how he might answer this. I think he would have to equivocate or qualify that statement in some fashion in order to be consistent with the policy that he's proposing.

Q: I realize confirmations are the role of the Senate, but you are pretty familiar with Governor Vilsack. What kind of Agriculture Secretary do you think he will be?

A: One thing is: He's a smart man and he understands how state government works. So, with his attorney background and his background of eight years as the governor of Iowa, he'll be able to manage the policy side of it, the legalities of it and the administration components of it. I did not hear significant criticism of him as an administrator as governor.

So I expect those capabilities that he honed as governor in Iowa will be very useful to him as Secretary of Agriculture. And I'm very glad to have an Ag Secretary coming in from Iowa. The lack of the farm background is something that can be compensated for and will need to be compensated for by the people he surrounds himself with and by the nature of him being an Iowa governor who has dealt with foreign trade, agriculture trade -- I expect that's going to be very useful to us.

… I think the ethanol industry will be looking to Tom Vilsack to be, perhaps our number one defender in the incoming Obama Administration.

Q: Do you sense a different feeling in Washington since the election? The current administration wasn't especially popular, according to job approval polls.

A: It does feel different. There are different components and different reasons why it feels different …

I spent our last few days here in the lame-duck session, in early December, saying goodbye to some very good people, who, by the results of the election, their talents and abilities will no longer be available in the same fashion to the American people. It was a bad few days there.

But to come back in here now, for the new 111th Congress, and look around me and see that the people that I have been working with -- that's the army that we have to go to battle with now. There are fresh troops that have come in as freshmen, so there's an instantaneous energy that comes from that. The drag from saying goodbye in early December is over and the exuberance that comes from a fresh start has begun. I don't know that we've quite stepped up to what that means to inaugurate a new president, at this point.

Q: Some time has to pass for a presidency to be properly judged. When it is all said and done, how do you think the presidency of George W. Bush will be looked back upon?

A: I have said for some time, for several months, that history will treat George W. Bush far more kindly than the mainstream news media and his contemporary critics have. I am sitting with a vantage point where I can see many of his critics -- they have something to gain by criticizing President Bush. I've watched them break down his credibility word-by-word, piece by piece since the election in Florida.

There was a relentless period of time that they were undermining our national security in the process. I will always believe that we have lost hundreds of brave, patriotic Americans in places like Iraq because the effort to discredit George Bush encouraged our enemies, who attacked Americans more, not less because of it.

We're at this point today, where I can tell you without equivocation that, over the last six months, that accidental deaths of American military in Iraq are greater in number than combat deaths. When a war gets to that point, where being killed in an accident is a greater risk than being killed by the enemy, I think at that point that we can see there's been significant progress that's made… (King stopped the interview for a moment to address another matter, then returned) … That's one of the measures of success. There are many, many milestones in Iraq. I think we'll look back on that and say: Sometime, during 2008, we have won the War in Iraq and that it could not have happened without a strong resolute Commander in Chief who was determined to achieve victory in that war, and he had to stand up and take that principled and courageous stand at a time when it would have been a lot easier to capitulate.